How to get a Pixar look on render and tutorials on setting up a scene?
As per the comments, there is an army of people behind any particular animation of the size and scope of a Pixar animation.

While you suggest that you aren't going for photorealism, it is extremely important to understand and embrace that every concept, from the rendering shaders on up to the output transforms you see on your screen are in fact rooted in photorealistic theory and physics.

So where to start for something like "I want to learn about Pixar?" Seems like a question that no one might have an answer to, or if they do, it might be long reams of answers that don't help someone down the path of education.

Shockingly, there is in fact a wonderful resource on the entire pipeline, from math to colour to composition, all the way up, specifically about Pixar.

While going through the following course won't make you a machine that can crank out Pixar animations overnight, it is a terrific introductory set of studies and knowledge that just about everyone can learn something from.

Enjoy Pixar in a Box.